FediForum Has Been Canceled
The FediForum Unconference is facing backlash and speakers pulling out in the face of public bigoted comments.
In light of recent controversy and its handling, the twice-a-year FediForum unconference for April 1st and 2nd has been canceled by its organizer.
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Sex isn’t a “gender orientation” it is really simple biology.
Gamete size – its really simple.
Congratulations infertile people, you are now officially sexless.
That is usually how males and females of a species are differentiated in general: males have the small gamete and females have the large one. (As you said, some individuals may not produce gametes so it only applies in general).
Of course humans are a lot more complicated. We have a concept of gender which doesn't necessarily align with biological sex, and many people modify their sex characteristics to match their gender, so applying generalizations blindly gets you nowhere.
Indeed, just as gender is a spectrum so is sex. I love when someone says "Its basic biology" because the best response is "and this is intermediate biology".
With all due respect, sex is not a spectrum.
It's a clearly a binary. Yes, there are many exceptions and edge cases, but they are all based around a universal binary biological structure.
You don't have say three distinct sexes required for reproduction outside of sci-fi. It is a binary with some edge cases and variations in how exactly the two parts of the binary interact.
It is a binary with some edge cases
So in other words, not a binary? What you're describing is more accurately described as a bimodal distribution.
It's far closer to a binary distribution than a bi-modal distribution. You can be pedantic, but that's not a real arguement. I admitted there are edge cases.
This is not tied to pure outcomes and is derived from actual earth bio-chemistry.
There is no triple helix or quadruple helix as a foundational system of genetic bio-chemical reproduction.
When you flip a coin, there is a chance that it will land on the side, yet we still use a coin flip for a 50:50 probability scenario because it is close enough.
I admitted there are edge cases.
Then it's not binary.
When you flip a coin, there is a chance that it will land on the side, yet we still use a coin flip for a 50:50 probability scenario because it is close enough.
Absolutely. For day to day life, "there are two outcomes" is safe way to describe coin flips. But given that a coin landing on its side can happen, it's not a binary system. It only becomes binary when we ignore the edge cases. Just like sex...
And that's before we get to the point that there isn't even a single definition of sex that accounts for all scenarios. People can change their legal sex, people can change their morphological sex, "genetic sex" isn't foolproof, as it doesn't always correlate with morphological sexual characteristics, or even gamete production.
Calling sex binary is either a generalisation, or something you want to be true. At no point is it reality of the situation though...
I strongly disagree. I am only happy for people to be the best version of themselves and to feel comfortable in their skin.
Changes in legal or morphological sex is not relevant. This is not what we are discussing.
I already mentioned that there are edge cases. Edge cases do not discredit foundational frameworks that define reality.
The bio-chemistry of terrestrial life is built upon a binary sex framework. This has been true for hundreds of millions of years. There is no such things as a triple helix or quadruple helix in terms of reproduction. Even trees and plants have a binary sex.
You claim that this is something I want to be true. I would argue the same (on a vice versa basis) for you and that you're framing the discussion using irrelevant examples (how is a morphological change in sex even relevant to what we are discussing).
Changes in legal or morphological sex is not relevant. This is not what we are discussing.
Of course they're relevant. Sex being immutable, easy to define and binary is at the core of the tactics that transphobes use to exclude and legislate against trans folk.
So the fact that it's not easy to define, has multiple definitions in different contexts, and has no single definition that works in all instances is very relevant.
You talked about "genetic bio-chemical reproduction" earlier. There are women who have literally given birth, who have XY chromosomes. Similarly, there are XX men with SRY genes. Using your "genetic sex is the truth" approach, they are both folks with a different genetic sex to their physical and legal sex. A transphobe would catch those people and throw them under the bus too whilst they target trans people.
The bio-chemistry of terrestrial life is built upon a binary sex framework
Yep. I'll agree with that. But the framework it is built on is not the end result. There is no meaning or intent behind the framework. There is nothing about it that is more "real".
The real part isn't the genetic plan that was used to create someone. The real part is the body they're actually walking around in.
To you, this is all an interesting argument. You're arguing about things in black and white, because none of it actually matters to you. So you can argue for how you think things should work.
The very same arguments you are using are being weaponised and turned against gender diverse folk and intersex folk. Your re-use of them, arguing about some sort of ideal that exists only in your head isn't harmless. The fact that sex is nuanced, that gender is nuanced, that they both have multiple, contradicting definitions, and neither have a single definition that is more true than the others is incredibly important, because the only reason to ignore that is either to hurt people, or because you're so far removed from the reality of what's happening, that you place a higher priority on things being neat and tidy than on the people that false belief hurts.
Let me take a step back for a second.
We are not discussing the strategies used by the far right to demonize trans folk (or anyone else). We are discussing something completely different that has no bearing on the strategies used by the far right. What will me moving away from what you call "my ideal" change in this world?
Let's say we have some deus ex machina method to close the discussion around the nature of sex and make everyone believe that sex is a spectrum.
Do you really think this will magically get rid of transphobia? I would even go as far as saying a lot of the people who claim to be concerned about "trans issues" don't actually care about them and they are simply being led by oligarch propaganda. And oligarch propaganda will leverage anything that they think will have an impact.
So how will me rejecting my understanding of genetic bio-chemical reproduction (as is proven by hundreds of millions of years of life on earth and the a reproductive framework that span millions of species) change anything?
Do you see what I am getting at?
Here are 11 different animals that can change their gender.
We are not discussing the strategies used by the far right to demonize trans folk (or anyone else). We are discussing something completely different that has no bearing on the strategies used by the far right.
Yes we are. The only reason these discussions come up in the first place is because of that.
You thinking that this has nothing to do with the far right doesn't make it so. Normalising the idea that sex is black and white, and conversations about that only occur in a wide spread way because there is political reward in presenting things that way. 10 years ago you weren't having these discussions. Today, you are, because the politics of transphobia has made it happen.
You are the one who claimed that I was diverting in to irrelevancy. I bring up the political context, because it's not irrelevant.
This whole conversation, the thread you are talking in, exists, because a transphobe was using the same talking points you are arguing for, to normalise transphobia. You doing it, also normalises transphobia, whether that is your intent or not.
You want a sex binary to exist. It doesn't, unless you smooth away the edges and ignore some of the data and the lived realities of people. Evolutionary biologists don't share your perspective. Geneticists don't share your perspective. This whole conversation exists for political reasons, designed to push exclusion. In a topic about a person using these exact talking points to push for exclusion, you have arrived, repeated the talking points, and then tried to argue that actually, it's ok, because your perspective is correct, so long as we ignore some of the details.
Which is exactly what the next transphobe will do too.
Even if you don't agree with me, and to you, this is all about the purity of ideas, your choice of getting involved in this discussion, in this context, isn't removed from reality. It's not detached. It's actively empowering the exclusionary voices by talking over and fighting with the people pushing back against that exclusion. That's a choice you made that has nothing to do with the truth of your idea
I feel like you are conflating "the different combinations of directly reproduction-related traits which can occur in species which have sexes" and "the kinds of viable gametes which exist in creatures that have sexes".
It seems like your definition of the sex framework is based on "the kinds of viable gametes of creatures which have sexes" (I do think this is a binary, let's call this X), while other people are arguing for a definition more like "the combinations of traits in these creatures of which certain combinations are directly responsible for the creation of viable gametes" (there are more than two of these, and it's not clear how to enumerate them).
That said, I might be wrong about what you are arguing and what other people are arguing. I'm sorry if I've wasted your time in some way.
Also (a pedantic complaint) you said these things:
they are all based around a universal binary biological structure
The bio-chemistry of terrestrial life is built upon a binary sex framework
There are multiple species of terrestrial fungi which use "mating systems" which aren't sex-based and aren't necessarily binary.
Again, I'm sorry if I've wasted your time in some way.
I already mentioned that there are edge cases. Edge cases do not discredit foundational frameworks that define reality.
But when you are trying to define or classify things it is the edge cases that are key. It is at the edges that we hope to find a clear divide between one set of things and another.
Unfortunately, with sex chromosomes, their impact on development and that effect on performance it feels like the more we know the less we understand.
International sporting bodies have huge resources and access to the best experts in the various fields and they can't come up with a good way to classify male and female. I could, at least, see the logic in their going for testosterone exposure during puberty as being a useful guide, although it is complex and rather arbitrary, but there are counter-arguments to that which suggest it isn't useful. So the sporting bodies seem to be falling back on chromosome testing, which is no guide at all to performance and seems to be favoured because it is easy to test for - like the drunk looking for his keys under a lamppost because the light was better there.
Sex is indeed a spectrum. Intersex presentation makes up a meaningful though small percentage, somewhere around the 0.05% range. If it were a binary there would be two options, mutually exclusive. This is a bimodal distribution, with two very strong peaks for XX or XY karyotype and a bunch of variation around either different karyotypes, XXY etc, or differing activation or expression of those karyotypes, eg androgen insensitivity etc.
On top of that, what would you say sex is exactly? Which gamete is larger? In seahorses the males have the smaller gametes but the females use something very similar to a penis to deposit the egg into the male who then raises it and performs all the roles we associate with females in humans.
Is it based on which chroonosomes? In some animals it is a WZ or W karyotypes, so that can't be it. In others it is just a presence or absence of a sex chromosome. In some plants they have more than two sets of everything, like strawberries with 7 copies of each chromosome. In others they have one, two, or four in some parts of the life cycle, but sometimes the thing we see is the higher number, sometimes it is the lower number. Some have a mix of male and female parts, having sperm and egg producers on the same plant but separated, some have both right next to each other in groupings. Some animals can undergo sex changing due to environmental factors.
Nothing in biology is as simple as the models we use to represent them. Sex is complex and while it sometimes seems simple that is the less common state. Genes are not often all the way on or all the way off, they are usually moderated and running at different levels across the organism cell by cell, and changing with time. The same goes for traits.
I would recommend learning more about ut biology if you really do believe sex is a simple binary. The world of biology is far more complex and varied than that idea can capture and honestly it is fascinating, I find it extremely exciting to find the examples of my own ignorance, they are usually super cool. Good luck!